ore you in _puris naturalibus_. Like most men in
this condition, he does not present a very attractive appearance.

SECTION 37. You ought never to take any man as a model for what you
should do or leave undone; because position and circumstances are in
no two cases alike, and difference of character gives a peculiar,
individual tone to what a man does. Hence _duo cum faciunt idem, non
est idem_--two persons may do the same thing with a different result.
A man should act in accordance with his own character, as soon as he
has carefully deliberated on what he is about to do.

The outcome of this is that _originality_ cannot be dispensed with in
practical matters: otherwise, what a man does will not accord with
what he is.

SECTION 38. Never combat any man's opinion; for though you reached the
age of Methuselah, you would never have done setting him right upon
all the absurd things that he believes.

It is also well to avoid correcting people's mistakes in conversation,
however good your intentions may be; for it is easy to offend people,
and difficult, if not impossible, to mend them.

If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of two people whose
conversation you happen to overhear, you should imagine that you are
listening to a dialogue of two fools in a comedy. _Probatum est._

The man who comes into the world with the notion that he is really
going to instruct in matters of the highest importance, may thank his
stars if he escapes with a whole skin.

SECTION 39. If you want your judgment to be accepted, express it
coolly and without passion. All violence has its seat in the _will_;
and so, if your judgment is expressed with vehemence, people will
consider it an effort of will, and not the outcome of knowledge, which
is in its nature cold and unimpassioned. Since the will is the primary
and radical element in human nature, and _intellect_ merely supervenes
as something secondary, people are more likely to believe that the
opinion you express with so much vehemence is due to the excited state
of your will, rather than that the excitement of the will comes only
from the ardent nature of your opinion.

SECTION 40. Even when you are fully justified in praising yourself,
you should never be seduced into doing so. For vanity is so very
common, and merit so very uncommon, that even if a man appears to be
praising himself, though very indirectly, people will be ready to lay
a hundred to one that he is talking out of